Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Terry Glavin argues that Canada's response to Donald Trump's Muslim ban needs to consist of more than the platitudes offered by Justin Trudeau, while Tom Parkin and Chantal Hebert point out that even Trudeau's words to date have unduly downplayed Trump's dangers. And Andrew Coyne writes about the common hatred behind multiple attacks on Muslims - along with the politicians and pundits who have encouraged it.

- Meanwhile, Owen Jones writes that it will take a strong popular resistance to answer Trump's abuses of power. Martin Lukacs notes that the same principle applies to pushing for more humane refugee and immigration policies in Canada, while Heather Libby makes a compelling case that we need to offer more than thoughts and prayers in response to the Quebec mosque attack. And PressProgress highlights Ed Broadbent's suggestions as to how to make a difference.

- Jeremy Nuttall reminds us that Trump isn't the only recent U.S. president to facilitate the use of torture - and that Canada is still waiting on the Libs to reverse the Harper Cons' willingness to play along.

- Robin Sears discusses the importance of journalists in exposing and countering the power of a corrupted state.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg examines Donald Trump's selective interest in limited government - as he's fully dedicated to using the power of the state to enrich himself and his corporate cronies. And Charles Pierce takes a look at the consequences - both intended and unintended - of the demolition of a functional regulatory system.

New column day

Here, on the crisis of liberal democracy around the globe - and how we face our own obvious risks in Canada.

For further reading...
- Yascha Mounk's research into the precarious state of democracy is discussed here by Amanda Taub. And Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz trace how a seemingly secure democracy can fall apart incrementally. 
- George Monbiot highlights the connection between the rise of radical bigots and the perception that our previous elected governments have ceded meaningful political control to the corporate sector.
- The appalling "lock her up" chants directed at Rachel Notley by Ezra Levant's rally for hate have been discussed plenty, including by Tyler Dawson, the Globe and Mail, Chantal Hebert, Tasha Kheiriddin, Danielle Paradis, Brent Rathgeber and Don Braid.
- Sarah Boon warns of the risk that Trumpism could take hold in Canada. And Jim Carr's threat to send in Canada's military to attack environmental and indigenous activists offers an indication of the Libs' own tendencies toward strongman governance. 
- Finally, Terry Glavin also examines the real dangers to democratic governance developing around the globe - while noting that the Libs' actions in dealing with the core promise of electoral reform may represent a make-or-break moment for Canada's democratic future.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Walkom discusses how Canadian workers are feeling the pain of decades of policy designed to suppress wages - and notes there's plenty more all parties should be doing to change that reality. And Doug Saunders points out what we should want our next federal government to pursue to bring about lasting growth:

Many economists came to realize not only that government intervention bailed many countries out of the post-2008 recession and restored growth and employment, but that the crisis itself may have been caused, in good part, by the disappearance of active government support in the economy – the sort of direct investment and partnership that had existed in earlier decades.
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Economists began noticing that the great economic boom of the 1990s and 2000s had been a direct product of targeted state investments in specific companies and sectors. The Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, in her influential book The Entrepreneurial State, chronicled the emergence of the iPhone as a direct product of Washington’s large-scale investments in Silicon Valley – not just through state spending on technology products and tax incentives to high-tech industry, but through the specific choice of Apple, in the 1970s and 1980s, as a company Washington would invest in (though small-business investments that put $2 into Apple for every dollar of private investment). Intel and Compaq were also targets of this active state investment, much as Elon Musk’s Tesla electric-car company is today.

Dr. Mazzucato, in an interview from her University of Sussex office, describes the heavily funded state banks that have allowed Germany, China and the United States to build globally competitive companies – and notes that Canada, despite having earned a fortune in petroleum revenues in the past 15 years that could have created a similar major institution, has nothing substantial of the sort, nor any proposal to create one.

“Canada is interesting,” she said. “It is one of the most skewed countries, not only in terms of sectors – lots of emphasis on the extractive stuff – but also in terms of instruments: It’s very, very indirect. It does most of its government investment through tax incentives. Compare that to the United States or China or Germany, where it’s all direct: If they want to do something, they do it. They directly finance a sector or the most innovative companies, and they create grants or guaranteed loans to do it, not an indirect tax credit. And on top of that, these Canadian investments are not so mission-oriented: At best, there’s a list of sectors to be supported indirectly, but no targeting of specific companies or industries. And then they get surprised when they’re not on the top any more in any of the big innovations.”

- Andrew Coyne rightly argues that we shouldn't spend so much of an election campaign attacking past personal statements from candidates, while noting that part of the problem lies in the vetting authority that's been taken over by the parties' leaders.

- Meanwhile, Kevin Grandia highlights Cheryl Gallant's climate change denialism as a symptom of the Cons' real unfitness for office. And Donald Gutstein comments on Doug Black's role as an oil lobbyist within the Senate.

- Tabatha Southey writes that the Cons are offering nothing but fear, uncertainty and doubt for voters, while Sandy Garossino weighs on that message as it applies to refugees in particular. And Terry Glavin zeroes in on how that strategy involves ignoring the plain facts even of high-profile events such as the tragic deaths in the Kurdi family.

- Finally, Parker Donham sets out why Canada can't afford any more of Stephen Harper. And Fram Dimshaw reports that the veterans who once served as Harper's political cover are joining the cause in demanding more responsible government.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Kate McInturff puts forward some big long-term goals which deserve to be discussed as we elect our next federal government. And Leah McLaren discusses how a lack of child care affects every Canadian:

The single most shocking thing to me about becoming a mother was the lack of affordable child care, both in Canada and in Britain (where I was living when my son was born). It was an issue I had heard responsible people around me banging on about for years, but one that had sort of floated above my comprehension, like the sound of the grown-ups talking in the animated Charlie Brown.

Like car insurance or taxes, I expected organizing child care to be a pain – one of those annoying but ultimately surmountable aspects of grown-up life. What I did not expect it to be was a financially crippling, life-paralyzing quagmire.

In Canada (as in Britain), I was shocked to find little or no access to affordable child care during my son’s first years of life. Like most families, we shouldered the heavy financial burden of full-time child care all on our own with no help from the government or extended family (everyone lives out of town). It was either that or one of us quit working. Not a pretty choice, or a realistic one for most parents, either.

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Child care is not a women’s issue. It’s not even a family issue. Like health care or education, it’s an all-of-us-in-it-together issue. And yet it’s also something many of us don’t think about until we are hard up against it, confronting the impossible life choices that materialize when you live in a society with a lack of affordable daycare – a society that sentimentalizes children but not the act of actually caring for them.

- Lindsay Tedds discusses how the Cons' tax giveaways for resource exploration represent all that's wrong with public policy which serves only to enrich investors rather than serving the public interest. And David Dayen highlights how mortgage foreclosure fraud continues in the U.S. even after being publicly exposed.

- Derek Seidman notes that in addition to improving conditions in specific workplaces, the push for a $15 minimum wage is also serving as a rallying point for the labour movement as a whole. And Unifor highlights the importance of an improved Canada Pension Plan as another means of ensuring financial security regardless of one's immediate employer. 

- Finally, Terry Glavin follows up on Alan Kurdi's tragic story with some suggestions as to what can be done next - though it's worth noting that the convention he points to as a barrier to the Kurdis' effort to seek refuge does nothing to prevent a country from doing more than the bare minimum.  Ratna Omidvar, Joseph Yu and Kai Wong make the case to bring 1,000 refugees to the GTA alone. And Aaron Wherry takes a broader look at our options in dealing with refugees and other displaced persons, while Karl Nerenberg and Michael Harris are particularly pointed in criticizing the Cons' callousness.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Following up on this post, it was Terry Glavin who broke the story about refugee children dying after being refused admission into Canada. And the Guardian recognizes that the tragic image of Aylin Kurdi represents only a reminder of a a long-running human tragedy.

- Which is why Canada's treatment of newcomers was already emerging as a significant issue - with Harsha Walia rightly slamming the Cons' policy of jailing refugees and favouring temporary immigration. And Jason Kenney's response was to offer spin which was readily debunked by his government's own numbers.

- Zi-Ann Lum reports on another international embarrassment for Canada, as Barack Obama and John Kerry are calling out the Cons for refusing to take climate change seriously.

- Jeremy Nuttall examines how a recession and continued economic stagnation will affect different segments of Canadian society. And Trish Hennessy offers ten reasons why nobody should be taking Stephen Harper's economic advice, while Andrew Jackson makes the case for more investment as the best way to move us back toward real development.

- Finally, Frances Russell repurposes the Cons' "Stand Up for Canada" slogan as a compelling reason to vote Harper and company out of office.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne writes that Canadians care plenty about the well-being of hungry children even if the Cons don't:

After a firestorm of shocked responses from Canadians, Mr. Moore apologized for his “insensitive comment” uttered days before Christmas. What he did not apologize for or reassess was his belief in the kind of fend-for-yourself country his remarks support.

The apology came likely because this is the season of goodwill and it is no time to remind Canadians what drives the current federal government, begging the question of why it is tolerated any time of the year.

Yet despite the outrage, despite their unending troubles, this government marches on towards its goal of building a country where we no longer truly care about the plight of our neighbours.

- PressProgress highlights the unregulated growth of the tar sands and other closely-related industries - including a massive increase in private air traffic. Terry Glavin suggests that there's only one right answer for the Harper Cons in making the final call on the Norther Gateway pipeline. And Stephen Hume isn't buying the Cons' attempts to demonize all opposition to it:

[The Conservatives are making] an argument that non-governmental organizations vowing to stop the proposed project following its approval by the National Energy Board — subject to more than 200 conditions — are somehow undermining the democratic process through intimidation, threats of violent protest, political sabotage, slander and disinformation.

This is all code. It is intended to define a category to which those who think the pipeline is a bad idea can be routinely consigned. Thus, opposition may be dismissed without assessing the merits of the objections — simply opposing the pipeline invites automatic framing of that protest as the work of enemies of the Canadian way of life.

British Columbians have heard all this rhetoric before. It is a propaganda strategy devised by giant public relations firms. It was first deployed here more than 20 years ago by the forest industry in response to protest and civil disobedience aimed at preventing the denuding of great swaths of the province with vast industrial clearcuts.
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A word to the enthusiasts for this approach: It didn’t work in the early 1990s; it won’t work now.

- Meanwhile, Mike de Souza reports that having eliminated any environmental protection for nearly all of Canada's fisheries and waterways, the Cons are now slashing funding for what few water protection programs were left - even though the department itself has made clear that it needs more resources rather than less.

- Finally, Robin Sears comments on how a scandal-filled year in politics may serve to undermine trust in our political institutions. (Though the sad reality is that the politicians most responsible for that loss of trust are exactly the ones whose ideology might benefit from public antipathy toward politics.)

[Edit: added link.]

On bravery

Dr. Dawg has thoroughly debunked Terry Glavin's attack on Afghan MP Malalai Joya. But it's worth pointing out that the absurdity of Glavin's column can be more neatly summed up by looking at what he thinks makes others "brave" in contrast to Joya. Shorter Glavin:

The true mark of bravery is to demand that others risk their lives for your benefit. Chickenhawks Forever!